No Need For Words
by andromeda's song
Summary: Sherlock and John assume temporary custody of a young boy named Cecil- a seven year old child with selective mutism. Cecil's silent presence fits easily into their lives, and both Holmes and Watson end up needing to redefine the meaning of family. Adapted from "Four Crows for a Boy" from my Seven Crows story and my first adventure in quasi-parent!lock.
1. Cecil

**I suppose this can be seen as my first foray into the world of parent!lock (which I adore reading). It's not completely parent!lock, but it's close enough for government work. :) This is an expansion of the chapter entitled "Four Crows for a Boy" from my other work, Seven Crows. I was really curious to see how the dynamic worked out between the characters and thus...this story was born. (You don't need to read Seven Crows for this to make sense...but if you still want to pop over and check it out I certainly won't mind...) **

**Enjoy! And let me know if anything is completely... whacked. Thanks. :)**

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My name is Cecil Jacobson. When I was five years old, I diagnosed myself with a condition called selective mutism. It just means that I don't like to talk in front of people I don't know or don't trust. On a broader scale, it means that I have at least a moderate level of anxiety when it comes to interacting with people. Some people think that I'm autistic or that I have a speech disorder. I don't…I have never been much for talking, which was something that confused my foster families. They always wanted me to speak. But my voice…my thoughts… I was never inclined to give them away. Not just to anyone.

I was put into the foster care system at the age of four when my parents died in a plane crash. I was given to a kindly older woman named Greta. Greta was sweet…it was with her help that I discovered that my…proclivity to be non-verbal was called selective mutism. Sadly, Greta died just before my seventh birthday and I was put back into the rotation. Shortly thereafter I was given to Frank and Celia Jones. They were not nice people. Well, they were nice to the people that seemed to count, like the social workers and the administrators for Protective Services and the like. But there were seven of us total living in their flat with them, and they were never nice to us.

We were miserable. Our lives were miserable. Not Oliver Twist miserable, but we were degraded to a base level of human existence that was just sadistic, especially for children. Seven of us; Grace, Tabitha, Niall, Will, Rory, Marisa, and me. Grace and Tabitha were twins and the eldest among us. They were ten and had only been in foster care for a few months. They weren't handling it well, but they put on brave faces for the rest of us, their blond hair always done in neat braids as if that could somehow help them control the situation. Niall was nine and loved football. Will was nine too. I remember he hated peas and had a yellow marble that was his prized possession. Rory and Marisa were eight. Rory only ever talked about how much he missed his brother, who'd gone to a different family. Marisa liked singing, but the Jones' never allowed singing. And then there was me.

I was seven and a half and didn't like talking. I didn't much like interacting with people at all, to be completely honest. This always made the Jones' mad, because they—like so many people—didn't understand why I never wanted to talk. I wanted so desperately to tell them that I didn't want to talk to them because they were so achingly stupid and mean, but I couldn't. I would just sit there with my foster brothers and sisters and wonder if we would ever be allowed to leave.

If I would have known that within six months of moving in with the Jones family Sherlock Holmes and John Watson would appear like angels with Scotland Yard and pluck me and my foster siblings from our misery, well… I wouldn't have despaired so much.


	2. Thin Little Scarecrow

**1.) I don't know anything about how foster care systems operate, especially in Great Britain. **

**2.) I am not an expert on selective mutism. Everything I know comes from observation of a third grade student with the condition and my own research on the internet. **

**3.) There is just the briefest of mentions about child abuse (nothing graphic, I assure you). If it triggers you, please look past it.**

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The flat smelled stale and with a slight undertone of cigarettes, unwashed skin, and trash. Sherlock Holmes wrinkled his aristocratic nose against the pungent odour but continued to make his way over the threshold. John and Lestrade were on his heels, both men exhaling sharply through their noses in an effort to get used to the scent of the air. Sherlock heard Lestrade give an order to a few of his sergeants to spread out and search for the Jones'. The two were implicated in the manufacture and sale of illicit drugs, as well as the murder of two men (which is why they were there in the first place). The case was barely a four, but as it happened, Sherlock owed Lestrade a favour.

Sherlock edged down the narrow hallway, centring himself on the last door just as John, Lestrade, and Donovan stood at the ready in front of the other doors lining the hall. At Lestrade's signal, they all moved together, throwing open the doors and barging inside. Sherlock twisted the handle of his door, the excitement building in his veins. He threw open the cheap, wood-panelled door and stepped inside.

The sight that greeted him honestly shocked him, and that was not an easy task considering that Sherlock had seen a great many disturbing things over the course of his life. Inside the room, there were no boiling beakers or cutting boards or any sort of illicit drug paraphernalia. Frank and Celia Jones were nowhere to be found within the space. Instead, there lay seven children upon haphazard piles of mattresses, pillows, and blankets. Sherlock's brain raced to catch up with him. The Jones' must have been a foster family, because these children were clearly not related to one another and neither did they resemble the Jones'.

All seven children were staring up at him with wide eyes and open mouths. He saw the way the two blonde twins in the corner shifted slightly in order to position themselves in front of a younger boy, maybe eight years old. Sherlock held up his hands in a placating gesture and gently crouched down.

"It's going to be alright," he said. "I'm with Scotland Yard and I'm not going to hurt you."

"How do we know that?" Sherlock swivelled his head to face one of the blonde girls. Her lip was trembling and her eyes were filled with tears, but she was sitting regally and proud. Sherlock felt the corner of his mouth twitch into a smile.

"Let me show you," he answered. He turned his head towards the open door and called for John and Lestrade. The detective inspector and the doctor came rushing in moments later, startling the children again.

"Jesus," John breathed, taking in the sight of the children before him. The doctor inside of him took over, and he made his way into the room so that he could kneel next to the first child he saw, a boy of perhaps nine years. The boy stared at him with wide green eyes and edged away when John reached forward to him.

"It's okay," John said. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm a doctor and I just want to check and make sure that you aren't injured." The boy looked around at the blonde twins, checking for affirmation. The twins looked at each other, and then at the three adults in the room. They nodded in tandem, one looking at Sherlock and one looking at the boy in front of John. With that, the children began to inch forward with muted interest.

They were all underweight…thin little scarecrows with big, blinking eyes. Their clothes hung on their frames and were worn and smelled stale. The tears in the fabric were carefully patched by inexpert hands…probably the work of the elder twin girls and the small sewing kit stashed by their mattress. All the children were wary and a little anxious, but when they realised that they had nothing to fear from the people in their room, they became overwhelmed with a desire to be held. Lestrade was currently holding one of the nine year old boys in his lap and asking him questions. John was examining the eight year old girl, who had some angry burn marks on her hands. Donovan had come in and was holding the hand of the eight year old boy, who had his head buried in her stomach and was beginning to weep.

Even Sherlock had found a child. He'd immediately noticed the smallest boy in the farthest corner of the room. He was curled up against the wall with his arms wrapped around his knobby knees, but his eyes were watching all the activity in the room with a sort of passive observation. Sherlock recognised the look and inched forward, picking his way through the mess to go and sit with the boy.

The child was probably seven years old or so. He had chestnut coloured hair that hung in loose curls to his chin. His eyes were bright blue, almost like John's, Sherlock noted. There was a light dusting of freckles across the boy's nose and cheeks and there was a small pink scar over his right eyebrow. Sherlock crouched in front of the child and the boy's bright eyes met Sherlock's and Sherlock felt his gut contract ever so slightly as he recognised the look the boy was giving him.

The child was doing more than watching Sherlock out of fear or anxiety. Surely, there was an undercurrent of anxiety that was coursing through the boy—Sherlock could see that in the slight tremors that shook the boy's frame and the way he hunched his shoulders and leaned further back into the wall. But the boy, despite his apprehension, was also observing Sherlock with a penetrating gaze that he knew was very much like his own. The child ran his eyes up and down Sherlock's frame, memorising and categorising. Sherlock couldn't resist a small smirk of satisfaction at the boy's observances. This is why children were one of the few types of people Sherlock enjoyed. They were so impressionable and given the right sets of circumstances could be moulded into capable adults. This boy would be one of them.

"My name is Sherlock Holmes," he said, settling on his knees in front of the boy. "Can you tell me your name?"

The boy shook his head, jostling the chestnut curls. Sherlock raised an eyebrow and looked at the boy again. He supposed there was the possibility the boy was mute, or perhaps hard of hearing. He wasn't fully deaf because he reacted to noises in the room, but maybe his hearing wasn't fully intact either. Sherlock opened his mouth to speak again, but he stopped as the boy held up his hand. The child pushed his arm forward and Sherlock took note of a light blue band that was wound around the thin wrist. He leaned closer to examine it.

The band was imprinted with small white lettering that spelled out "Selective Mutism: Break the Silence". Ah. That explained everything. Sherlock was familiar with the phenomenon that was selective mutism, seeing as how he'd experienced a version of the condition in his own youth. Typically, selective mutism was a sort of coping mechanism for children (and some adults) who suffered from moderate to severe social anxiety. Sherlock, on the other hand, hadn't spoken until he was six years old, but it was not a social anxiety that silenced him, but rather a need to gather a sufficient vocabulary before speaking.

Sherlock's focus snapped back to the child as he felt John's presence settle beside him. The child was watching the doctor with a wariness that Sherlock could practically feel. The boy's eyes flicked back to Sherlock and the myriad of silent questions were asked. Sherlock found himself answering.

"It's perfectly okay. John is a doctor and my partner, he won't hurt you." John flashed the boy a winning smile and then turned to Sherlock.

"What's his name, Sherlock?" the doctor asked.

Sherlock shrugged. "I don't know, John. Our young friend here is a selective mute." With the boy's silent permission, Sherlock reached forward and lifted the child's arm to show John the blue wristband. John read the words and nodded amiably, settling back on his knees like the detective. He reached into his jacket and pulled out the small notebook he kept to take notes for their work. He handed the book and a pen to the boy, who accepted it slowly. He looked from the book and back up to the doctor, who nodded in encouragement. With that, the boy opened the notepad to a blank page and began to scribble away. When he finished, he held the page up for the detective and the doctor.

_'My name is Cecil. I'm seven and a half years old.'_

John and Sherlock shared a pleased look before John turned his attention back to the boy—Cecil.

"Hello, Cecil," John said. "My name is John Watson and this is Sherlock Holmes."

Cecil nodded and then scribbled something else down on the paper. When he held it up, it read;

_'Please…what's going to happen to me?'_

Sherlock again felt a curious sensation pulling at the insides of his abdomen. He knew the standard operating procedure for incidences such as this. The children would be processed through a hospital until they had been thoroughly examined (after finding the burn marks on the girl, they'd all need to be checked for other signs of abuse). They'd probably be kept there until they were all back in healthy weight zones and their nutrition was balanced again (they were all lacking in the proper vitamins). Then, they'd be processed back into the foster care system and sent to new families. This was how things worked. But for some reason, the thought of sending Cecil back into the foster care system was not sitting well in Sherlock's mind.

Sherlock shot a look at John that clearly read "We have to do something, John." John schooled his own features to say "I know, Sherlock, but what?" Sherlock nodded towards the door, which prompted the doctor to excuse them and step outside the room. Cecil watched them go before he turned his attention back to the notebook and began doodling. Once outside the room, John stood close to his partner. Sherlock's lips were pursed in thought and his hands were wringing together in something between anticipation and anxiety.

"Sherlock," John said. "What…what do you want to do?" There were times when John questioned Sherlock; his thoughts, his motives, his deductions, his actions. But there were times when Sherlock assumed a particular bright gleam in his eye and a conviction so strong that it rolled off him in waves like a tangible spirit and it was during those times that John only stepped in to ask his partner what he wanted.

Sherlock's lips thinned in thought and his hands worked. "He can't go back to the foster system, John. It's not a good place for children like Cecil…he runs the risk of going to a family like this one again. I can't… I can't let that happen."

Curious. John knew that Sherlock took a particular vexation to cases that involved children in any way, especially if they were the victims. In Sherlock's mind, crimes against children were the most heinous of all. Children were blank slates and could be moulded into bright, competent creatures given the right circumstances and upbringings. Sherlock (and John, for that matter) could never understand why anyone would want to harm the most fragile existences in the species. But what made Cecil so special? Sherlock was taking a deeper interest in the boy…enough for him to brainstorm a solution to a problem that hadn't even existed only half an hour prior.

Sherlock easily read the thoughts on his partner's face. "I understand your curiosity, John. Frankly, I don't know what it is about this boy that is… drawing me to him. But I feel… I feel something deep inside my gut that's telling me not to let this one go back into the system. I can't explain it." Sherlock frowned in his frustration. Feelings… this is why they were so abhorrent. Chemical reactions that you couldn't explain in words…it just wasn't right.

But John was nodding. "It's fine, Sherlock, I feel the same way." John paused and thought for a moment before turning back to the detective. "Why don't we ask Lestrade if we can temporarily assume custody of him? They'd need to be in the hospital for a few days anyway, getting their nutrition levelled out and their injuries taken care of. We can take him in and I can look after his medical needs. In the meantime, we can have Mycroft look for an adoptive family for him. He's got all the resources and we can make sure that Cecil doesn't end up with a family like the Jones' again. Would that be acceptable?" If you were going to have the British government for an elder brother, you might as well take advantage of it.

Sherlock's face split into a wide grin. "That's a wonderful solution, John!" he crowed. The detective bent to kiss John's cheek and then went dashing off, presumably to find Lestrade and the other authorities to tell him what he intended to do for Cecil. John rubbed his cheek fondly and felt a slight blush rise. He shook his head in affection and walked back into the room to sit with Cecil. The boy watched his approach with a neutral expression, but John thought he recognised the gleam in the boy's eyes. He'd seen it so many times in the eyes of a certain consulting detective.

"You're going to come home with Sherlock and me, alright?" John asked. "You can stay with us for a while."

Cecil jotted a question on the notebook he still held. "Will I stay forever?" The boy betrayed no emotion on his face, but John thought he could see the faintest glimmer of hope underneath. It broke his heart into jagged little pieces.

"I'm afraid not," John said. "But Sherlock's brother is going to find you a family." At Cecil's recoil in fear, John laid a gentle, steadying hand on the boy's shoulder and looked into his eyes.

"It'll be different, Cecil," John promised. "It will be a nice family and they will adopt you and raise you like their own. It will be different." Of course, there was no way he could predict that… but John knew that if they ever discovered that another family was misusing the child, there would be hell to pay.

John sat with Cecil and continued to ask him some non-invasive questions while they waited for Sherlock and Lestrade. John watched the medics carefully lead the children out of the flat one by one. At one point, one of the blonde twins (John thought her name was Tabitha) had come over to crouch next to Cecil. She'd tapped the small boy on the shoulder twice and Cecil had responded by reaching forward and tapping her shoulder three times. John figured that it was some sort of non-verbal code established between the children. _Are you okay? Yes, I'm fine._ Tabitha had nodded at Cecil and then got up and retreated out of the room with her twin, both of them clutching at the hands of Sally Donovan. John's heart swelled as he felt Cecil very gently lean to the side so that his head was resting on John's arm. It felt so incredibly natural and it filled John with a certain amount of awe.

After a while, the consulting detective and the detective inspector filed into the almost empty room. The two men joined John and Cecil by kneeling down directly in front of them. Cecil shrank into John's side, but Sherlock noticed and held up a placating hand towards the boy.

"Cecil," Sherlock said, "this is Detective Inspector Lestrade. He's okay, he just needs to ask you a few questions." Lestrade smiled at the young boy and waved a hand in greeting. Cecil eyed Lestrade for a few moments before he sat up and nodded at the man. Greg asked Cecil a few questions, most of which he'd already answered for Sherlock and John, so he merely pointed to his answers on the notebook. After Lestrade had finished, he fixed the boy with a firm look.

"Cecil, these two men want to take you home with them for a few days." Lestrade fixed Sherlock and John each with a look that was mingled pride and warning. "Is that going to be okay with you? If you don't want to go with them, you certainly don't have to. But they are good men and they will take care of you until we can find you a place to live. We will only do this is if it's okay with you." All three men were fixated on the child and awaiting his answer.

Cecil nodded without hesitation and the doctor and the detective shared a small smile. With the boy's acceptance, Lestrade granted the two men temporary custody of the boy. The three men stood and were joined by Cecil after a moment. The boy was a thin little scarecrow, all knees and elbows. He stood at his full height, which only brought him up to about mid-thigh on Sherlock. Sherlock glanced down at the boy and then offered him a hand. Cecil surprised him by opening up both his arms in the universal gesture for "pick me up". And so Sherlock very gently swooped the boy up into his arms, Cecil locking his skinny legs around Sherlock's hips and nestling his head into Sherlock's neck. Sherlock held the boy to him and flashed a look that was shocked satisfaction at John. John smiled back at his partner.

While the consulting detective took Cecil from the flat, John stayed behind to gather up the small piles of Cecil's belongings that were tucked around his mattress in the corner. There were a few sets of worn clothing, a couple of dog-eared books, and a stuffed bear that was missing one of its button eyes. John placed all of the belongings in a large, unused evidence bag and then exited the room, eager to leave the flat and forget all the human misery he'd witnessed today. It could have been so much worse, he thought, but even so…no child deserved to live like this. As John stepped out into the street, he noticed Sherlock standing on the other side of the tape, a sleek black car purring on the corner behind him. The doctor joined his partner and they slid inside Mycroft's car. Cecil was already fast asleep, curled up on the creamy leather seats.

John and Sherlock stared at the small child and then at each other as the car pulled away from the crime scene and back towards Baker Street. Just what had they gotten themselves into?

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**Ta-da! Look for more updates soon, and if anything strikes your fancy as being less-than-factual, please let me know! Thank you!**


	3. Going Home

**While I was writing this, I experienced some sort of weird temporal shift that blew my mind. I sat down to start writing at roughly 8:30. I wrote for a while and when I looked at the clock again, it was 11:00 and I hadn't even noticed. My, how time flies when you're having fun. :) **

**Thanks to Rainy Days-and-Daydreams and timelordsfaultedthestars for your reviews and everyone else who has been following along. :) (Rainy-Days, you give me strength, love!)**

**And now...the weather.**

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The car made its way through the crowded London thoroughfares just as the sun was sinking below the rooftops, bathing the entire façade in a delicate hue of dusty rose and gold. John looked out into the streets as they flew by and then down to the child that was currently curled up beside Sherlock in the back of the car. How things had changed in the past five hours… they'd left their flat in the pursuit of drug dealers/murderers and now they were returning without having captured either of the criminals and with one of their foster children now in their custody. And not just any child, but the youngest child and a selective mute at that. Cecil was inherently charming to the odd couple living within the walls of 221 B, but John's head was suddenly reeling with the full realisation of what they'd done.

Sherlock read his partner's mind. "Not having second thoughts, are you John?" He fixed John with a neutral gaze, but John could read the concern bristling behind those misty green eyes.

"Of course not," John answered immediately. He shook his head as if trying to dispel a fog from his brain. "No second thoughts, Sherlock. I just… just realised the full weight of what we signed on for."

"It's not like we're choosing to keep him forever," Sherlock reminded him.

"I know." John looked down at Cecil and smiled as the boy snored lightly into the silent space. "It's just… you know, kids are very delicate creatures. This is a huge responsibility, even if we only have him for a few days until Mycroft can find him a family."

"It is," Sherlock replied softly. "But children are inherently less boring than adults. It will be an interesting exploration, don't you think?"

John's eyes narrowed at Sherlock's choice of words. "Sherlock… you aren't… I mean, you didn't want Cecil just to… Sherlock…"

"Spit it out, John," the detective encouraged with a playful eye-roll.

John sighed. "You didn't want to take Cecil away so he could come and stay with us and you could…perform some kind of experiment on him, did you?" John cringed internally at how harsh and accusatory the words sounded even though he'd said them quietly and gently. Sherlock would never harm a child, but the opportunity to study one, especially a child with a condition like selective mutism? He had to know. Sherlock had once brought home a bulldog named Gladstone, which had thrilled John to no end because he adored dogs and Gladstone fit right in at Baker Street. But John had given Gladstone away after eight months and seven near-death experiences by the hand of Sherlock Holmes. The madman insisted he'd not intentionally been attempting to kill (or poison or maim) Gladstone, but keeping the poor thing was just too much of a temptation for the detective.

The look that Sherlock directed at John was not one of anger or any other sort of anger-derived glare. It was instead a look of exhaustion, weariness, and disappointment. Sherlock knew that John was asking only in the interests of protecting the boy's welfare, but it was a question that was borne out of some deeply-buried lack of trust in Sherlock's motives, and that hurt more than it fuelled rage. Sherlock could also tell that John felt guilty and looked like he had regretted asking, but that didn't really lessen the hurt.

"Of course not, John," Sherlock answered him in a low voice. "You know that I would never intentionally harm a child."

Sherlock watched John run a hand through his ashy blonde hair and sigh. "I know, Sherlock, and I'm sorry. I didn't mean to… accuse you of impropriety. I just had to ask. After the Gladstone incident, you know." Ah. Suddenly, Sherlock felt an odd twinge of guilt in his own brain. At some basic level, John still did not trust Sherlock's motives, which felt bad, but then as Sherlock re-examined the events of Gladstone's short-lived cohabitation with them, (and the Dartmoor sugar incident, of which he still refused to let go) he realised that he didn't give John much reason to trust him when it came to…adopting house guests. But Cecil… Cecil was a human being, and a child at that. This was different.

Sherlock reached out a hand and gently stroked the coppery curls of the child lying next to him. He could feel John watching him, so he took the opportunity to speak without facing his doctor. "This is different, John. As I said before, I do not know what exactly is drawing me to this child, but it is there all the same. I do not have children and nor do I expect that I ever will. But this is what I imagine being a father feels like… and it feels very…" Sherlock trailed off and waved his free hand about vaguely.

"Weird?" John supplied. "Good? Bad?"

"Nebulous," Sherlock said. "I feel very protective of him even though I've only known him for a few hours. I don't understand how that happens."

John flashed him a smile and a look of understanding. "I shot a man to keep you from dying after only knowing you for a few hours. I get it."

Sherlock reached across the space and took John's hand in his, squeezing it lightly. John returned the pressure with another gentle but genuine smile. As Sherlock withdrew his hand and settled back in his seat, the car pulled up outside the familiar black door of 221 Baker Street. Sherlock exhaled in relief; they were home.

John hopped out of the car, stopping only to say, "I'll go tell Mrs Hudson what we're up to and see if she won't be able to give us a hand in the next few days."

Sherlock nodded. "Sound idea, John. I'll take Cecil up to our flat." With that, John departed and went inside to find their landlady, the plastic bag holding Cecil's belongings clutched in his hands. Sherlock stepped out of the car and then reached back in to gently pick up the sleeping boy in his arms. He nodded to the driver and then carried Cecil over the threshold.

Mrs Hudson was standing in the foyer with John as Sherlock entered with Cecil cradled in his arms. The older woman beamed up at him and stepped closer to get a better view of the child. She reached up and stroked an errant curl off Cecil's face, automatically sliding into grandmother-mode. She smiled up at Sherlock.

"What's his name?" she asked.

"Cecil," John answered from her right.

"He's absolutely precious, boys," Mrs Hudson breathed. "I am so proud of you for doing this." She reached up and patted Sherlock's cheek before reaching over and kissing John's. Then she backed away and made a shooing motion with her hands.

"Well, go on and get him upstairs. I'll be round in few with some dinner for us all. Poor thing looks like he's not had a proper meal in ages!" She tisked under her breath and then hurried back towards her flat, the pair of men murmuring their thanks after her. John took to the stairs and Sherlock followed, still cradling the unconscious child.

Once inside the welcoming walls of 221 B, Sherlock laid Cecil down on the sofa and covered him with the small blanket that John had retrieved from the linen closet. The pair watched him for a moment or two before smiling at each other and then moving to hang up their coats. John went into the kitchen to put the kettle on and Sherlock settled at the desk to check his email (with John's computer, of course).

"Anything of interest?" John asked as he came up behind the detective and squinted at the screen.

Sherlock scoffed. "Two emails about missing fiancées, three about lost jewellery, and one insistent ad from the London Symphony Orchestra." He wrinkled his nose. "I despise Schoenberg, John."

John chuckled. "It's a good thing we didn't get tickets then, isn't it?" At that moment, two things happened; the kettle began to whistle stridently from the kitchen and Cecil shot upright on the couch with a wordless yelp. The two men parted and took to their respective charges; John dashed into the kitchen to silence the rebellious kettle and Sherlock hurried to the boy on the couch to reassure him.

Cecil was looking around the room frantically, not recognising where he was. He remained absolutely silent but there were tears beginning to gather in the corners of his eyes. Sherlock seated himself on the edge of the couch, right in Cecil's line of sight, and held up his hands in a soothing gesture. Cecil's gaze latched on to the detective's figure and his shoulders slumped in recognition.

"Cecil, it's perfectly alright," Sherlock murmured. "You're okay. This is where John and I live. We brought you home with us, remember?"

Cecil nodded slowly and took several deep breaths. He sunk back into the couch cushions as he broke away from Sherlock's gaze to study the room around him. He fixated on something for a few moments with a slight frown on his face until he turned back to Sherlock and mimicked a pen. Sherlock retrieved a notebook and pencil from the desk and returned to Cecil, handing him the items. John walked back into the room with three cups of tea just as Cecil finished writing in the book.

'You have a skull,' it read.

"Friend of mine," Sherlock replied with a smirk, looking at John. John returned the smile with a chuckle.

"Yoo hoo!" Mrs Hudson's light call echoed from the landing. Cecil whipped his head to the door and inched back into the couch. Sherlock went to answer the door and John took over by Cecil's side.

'Who is that?' Cecil asked.

John read the words and then answered the boy. "Cecil, you're going to meet our landlady. Her name is Mrs Hudson and she's very nice. I think she's brought us all some supper. You don't have to talk to her, of course…but she's our friend and just wants to take care of you like we do." Cecil looked up into John's eyes, electric blue meeting pearly blue, youthful meeting experienced. Cecil found himself slowly nodding, facing the door in time to see Sherlock enter with an older woman, a tray balanced between her hands and a bright smile adorning her face.

Cecil liked her almost immediately.


	4. Strangers

**Obviously...these shorter chapters are from Cecil's POV, in case that wasn't clear before. :) Danke. **

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Typically, I don't just get on with new people. The whole idea behind social anxiety is that those of us who have it have trouble dealing with strange people and strange places and strange situations. We prefer our comfort zones (because hey, they're called comfort zones for a reason). Generally, it takes us longer to warm up to people, even though we might seem polite and friendly from the start. As a selective mute, I don't like revealing my voice to people, and so I don't. Not even Greta heard me speak in the years that I spent in her house, and I really liked Greta.

In the beginning, I had always thought that I didn't like to talk to people just because I was shy and there was always pressure to speak and I found that to be very uncomfortable. There was also the fact that I did not wish to discuss my parent's death like so many of the therapists wanted me to. Later, I realised that my hesitation to speak did not come from undue social pressures—to a point. I just never wanted to talk because I never wanted to be seen as stupid.

I was a very smart child, and if I had been with a whole family or proper foster parents or adoptive parents, I might have been able to show someone that from the start. Most people weren't interested in intelligence unless you could spout it off verbally, and verbal wasn't really my thing. But because I didn't speak, I had the greater opportunity to observe the people around me. I could learn all kinds of things just from watching them. Later, I would discover that this is how Sherlock Holmes worked his magic; observation. I certainly didn't have the same level of ability he did, but if I wanted to know something about someone, I had to watch it in their body language and hear it in their voices. It's actually amazing how much you can learn when you choose to listen.

I was smart. And if it's one thing a smart person (no matter how old or young they are) dislikes, it's being told that you aren't smart or having someone interpret that you aren't smart. I've watched a lot of people over the course of my life, and a great majority of them spent their time babbling out all kinds of stupid things. I'd watch them and listen to the litany of idiocy spewing forth from between their lips and I'd wonder how they could think that way. At some point, I realised that this is why I preferred to keep my mouth shut. I didn't like talking to strangers, but I also didn't want anyone to interpret the things I said to be stupid, the way I did to so many. Judge not, lest ye be judged and all that… but hey, I had a lot more IQ points than a lot of people I came across.

All of that being said, I have no idea why I felt so comfortable around Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. I think Sherlock had sensed a sort of strange connection between the two of us from the very beginning; that's why he was drawn to me in the first place. I was an anomaly…an outlier on the bell curve and that was interesting to him. Likewise, I found that Sherlock was different than any other adult I had ever encountered before. In a completely inexplicable way, I found myself drawn to him and yearning for his affection and his comfort. I'd never felt emotions like that for any other adult save my parents before their accident. And John… well, I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who didn't immediately take a shine to the doctor in some way. John was charismatic and kind… I felt instantly close to him, like a child takes to his father. John would be a good father…was a good father…is a good father.

Needless to say, when John told me that another stranger was coming up to their flat (I'd never encountered so many strangers in such close proximity all at once before), I had panicked internally. But then Martha Hudson walked into 221 B and once again, I found myself completely enthralled with a stranger. It was a heady experience, if not a little discomforting at first. Mrs Hudson came in with four bowls of soup and John made four cups of tea and for the first time since my parent's death, I found myself in a family once more. Or at least…it felt like family.

And the soup was absolutely delicious.

* * *

**Once more, I don't know much about selective mutism, and I'm neither psychologist nor counselor or anything of the sort. Everything I mention about the mutism or the social anxiety or related things is a product of my own personal dealings with social anxiety. Everyone handles those social pressures in different ways, and Cecil is...kind of a reflection of how I deal and how many of us deal. **


	5. Mrs Hudson

Mrs Hudson watched Cecil eagerly attack his soup with all the polite voracity of a child who knows both hunger and manners. Sherlock had explained Cecil's peculiar nature to her as they met on the landing. Selective mutism, he'd called it. Well, Martha Hudson was not one for judging anyone for their proclivities…there's all sorts, you know. Besides, even if Cecil didn't speak, he was absolutely adorable and perfectly polite. She noticed the notebook and the pen lying beside him, so she decided to strike forward and see if he'd answer her questions.

Start with something simple, Martha, she thought. "How's your soup, dear? I wasn't sure what you'd like, but I know Sherlock here has a weakness for my homemade chicken noodle soup." She nudged the consulting detective, who sat on the floor at her feet, his bowl clutched between his knees. Sherlock scowled at her, but he was quickly distracted by his soup again (which he adored, as she said).

Cecil studied Mrs Hudson for a few moments before he nodded and picked up the pad to scribble something on its surface. He held it up for her to read and she bent closer to read the tiny print.

'It's delicious, thank you very much, Mrs Hudson.'

Mrs Hudson smiled warmly at the child as he downed the last spoonful of the soup with his free hand. "It's an old family recipe," she said. "My mother taught me how to make that soup when I was just a little girl, just like her mother taught her."

"It's wonderful, Mrs Hudson," John said as he gathered their empty bowls and placed them on the tray. "We really can't thank you enough for this."

Mrs Hudson waved off John's thanks with a smile. "Oh it's no trouble, John. But just this once, mind you. I'm your landlady, not—'''

"Not your housekeeper," the two men intoned in unison. This only caused the older woman to chuckle and reach down to tussle the mop of dark curls sitting in front of her.

It was at this point that Cecil's jaw cracked open in a huge yawn, the exhaustion suddenly flooding through him. John smiled and stood from his place on the couch, offering a hand out to the boy as he did so.

"Come along, Cecil," John said. "I'll draw you a bath and you can clean up before bed."

Cecil nodded and clambered off the couch to follow the doctor down the hall. As he was leaving, he turned around and shot a look back to Mrs Hudson, who smiled and said, "Don't worry dear, I'll still be here when you return!" Cecil nodded his understanding and went with John to the loo.

As soon as John and Cecil were out of sight, Mrs Hudson nudged Sherlock with her knee, which caused the detective to look up at her sharply. Her eyes had a very familiar glimmer in them… a look very much like the one she wore when she'd so subtly offered John the second bedroom, if they'd be needing two. Sherlock rearranged his position on the floor, sliding over to sit against John's chair so that he was facing his landlady. He raised his eyebrow at her as if to say "Yes?"

"Go on then, Sherlock," she prompted. "What's all this about? Why is this boy really here?"

Sherlock sniffed. "I believe John already told you why Cecil is here, Mrs Hudson."

"Remind me."

Sherlock heaved a long-suffering sigh. "I came across Cecil at the scene of an attempted arrest and drugs bust today. His foster parents—if two people who treated children like that can actually be called 'parents'- were our suspects. He and his foster siblings were left alone in the flat and we discovered them there. Cecil…" Sherlock paused. He was still completely unsure of how to explain to other people the magnetism that Cecil had to him. It was often a feeling that adults had towards other adults—call it soul mates or destiny or whatnot. It was an attraction that Sherlock felt towards John… but never for another quite in the same way.

"Cecil just seemed special to us," John said as he re-entered the living room. "The other children will be taken to the hospital and given some treatments for their malnutrition and the sort. Eventually they'll be given to other foster families, who are hopefully a damn sight better than the place they were. There was just something different about Cecil…"

"We couldn't let him go back to the foster care system," Sherlock finished. "Lestrade allowed us temporary custody of Cecil."

"What's going to happen to him?" Mrs Hudson asked.

"Mycroft is currently looking through adoption applicants. We'll find Cecil a suitable adoptive family," Sherlock answered. "Until then, he'll stay with us. And speaking of staying with us, did you leave him alone in our bathtub, John?" Sherlock fixed his partner with a look.

"He's seven, he'll be fine," John answered with a wave of his hand.

"What if he needs help?" Sherlock parried. "It's not like he will call out."

"I gave him my mobile. He'll text you if he needs help in the bath, Sherlock." John shook his head and sat down in his chair, nudging Sherlock to the side and then resettling the detective between his knees. A comfortable silence settled over the three adults. The faint sounds of a child happily splashing in a tub issued forth into the room and a content smile lingered on the lips of the doctor and the detective.

"What will happen to the other children?" Mrs Hudson asked. "Will they be okay?"

John felt his insides swoop with guilt. The other children… sure, John felt righteous because they had managed to nab Cecil and steal him away from the foster system and the chance at a repeat of the misery he'd endured at the hands of the Jones family. Mycroft would find Cecil a wonderful adoptive family and he'd go to a good school and most likely have a wonderful life. But what of the other children? Their faces flashed before John's eyes… the blonde twins, the nine year old with big green eyes, the eight year old with the terrible burn scars… Where would they go? Why couldn't they take all of them?

Sherlock could feel the guilt radiating from John's silence behind him. He reached up and patted John's knee reassuringly, looking Mrs Hudson in the eye as he did so.

"The other children will be taken care of, Mrs Hudson. Many of the Yarders were taking a special interest in the children's well-being, and between their concern and a little bit of a nudge from Mycroft, I think we can assume that if they are returned to the foster care system, they will be placed with good families." Sherlock squeezed John's knee again for good measure.

"Sometimes you can't save everyone," John mused in a low voice.

"No," Mrs Hudson agreed. "Sometimes you can't. But you've saved one. And I'm very proud of you for doing so, boys."

If John or Sherlock were going to respond to Mrs Hudson, it was lost as Sherlock's mobile began to trill insistently from its place on the coffee table.

* * *

**I'm actually quite ashamed of this chapter. I have agonised over this for many, many moons and I just... couldn't figure out how this chapter needed to be crafted. This is alright, but it's not my best work by far. Hopefully it makes sense to everyone! I'll get it all right in my head and the subsequent chapters will make up for this, I promise. :) **


	6. Help

**So sorry about the wait... life is what happens when you'd rather be writing fanfiction. :)**

**Warning: trigger for child abuse. :(  
**

* * *

I'd forgotten about the stitches until I felt the crackly tugging across the skin of my back and saw the water in the bath turn pink. I probably should have mentioned something to Doctor Watson sooner, but I honestly had forgotten about them in the surrealistic turn my afternoon had taken. Now I'd apparently tugged them open when I'd stretched too far to scrub at my back with the flannel. This was going to require some attention. I picked up John's mobile and sent a text to Sherlock's phone.

* * *

_Help._

That was all the text said, and the speed at which it propelled John and Sherlock into action was actually rather astounding. The two men were on their feet and dashing off to the loo within seconds, Sherlock calling out the boy's name as he went.

When they entered the small room, they found Cecil in the tub and above the water, wet strands of chestnut hair plastered to his forehead. His knees were drawn up to his chest, knobbly knees poking up out of the lavender scented bubbles. John nudged past Sherlock and went to kneel beside the tub.

"Cecil?" John asked. "What's—oh my…"

"John?" Sherlock asked, noting the way that John's speech had trailed off. The detective approached and sat on the lid of the toilet right behind John. He was about to ask what was the matter, but then as he looked at the small boy sitting in the tub, he saw.

There was a ragged line of poorly seated black stitches extending in a straight, four-inch line underneath Cecil's right shoulder blade. The stitches had been torn open at one end and a thin trickle of blood was running down his back. Cecil was looking up at them with curious eyes, not a hint of the pain that he must be feeling reaching his face. John made a tisking sound under his breath and reached a hand back towards Sherlock.

"Sherlock, fetch my kit from the closet, will you?" John's eyes never left the wound on the boy's back. Sherlock made a noise of agreement and dashed off for the kit. John reached a hand up and pushed some of the damp curls off the boy's forehead.

"Oh Cecil…" John muttered. "What on earth happened to you?"

Cecil picked up the mobile from where it lay on the edge of the tub and pecked away at the keys with his thumbs. While it would never cease to amaze John at how intuitive children of the 21st century were with technology at such a young age, he was at this moment grateful for the child's aptitude. Cecil had finished typing when Sherlock came back in with John's medical kit in his hand. He handed it to the doctor and Cecil wordlessly handed the mobile to Sherlock. Sherlock accepted it and read out the message.

"I got hurt at the playground. I fell off the bars and cut my back open. Frank and Celia didn't want to take me to the hospital."

John scoffed angrily as he set about cleaning the wound, daubing it gently with sterile cotton swabs. "Why not, Cecil?"

Sherlock handed the phone back and Cecil spent a few minutes clacking out his response. Sherlock again read the message, saying, "They didn't want the doctors to see. Frank said he learned how to stitch in the army so he sewed up my skin with thread from the sewing kit."

Sherlock felt a hot pang of anger spear him in the gut. "Cecil? What didn't they want the doctors to see?" It was bad enough that the boy hadn't received proper medical attention for the cut on his back, but the phrase 'not wanting the doctors to see' had terrible implications.

"Sherlock…" John said, a queer note of anxiety and calm rage in his voice. It was then that both the doctor and Sherlock realised that in addition to the laceration on Cecil's back, the expanse of the child's pale back and shoulders also exhibited a range of purplish-red bruising. The bruises wouldn't have been visible when the child was clothed, but if a doctor had examined the boy, they would have seen the clear indicators of child abuse.

"Cecil, did Frank and Celia give you those bruises?" Sherlock asked, his voice much calmer than he was on the inside.

Cecil accepted the mobile back from Sherlock and typed one word. "Obviously." Sherlock snorted in amusement at the boy's use of his trademark word, but the amusement was short-lived as anger boiled up inside him. There was never any reason to strike a child… a child that was so small and trusted so implicitly.

John exhaled heavily and finished pulling out the last of the shoddy stitches from Cecil's skin. He wanted to storm out of Baker Street, find Frank and Celia Jones, and then pummel them into oblivion for what they'd done to Cecil and undoubtedly what they'd done to their other foster children. But right now, the boy needed Doctor Watson and that's who John was going to be. So instead of storming out in a fit of righteous indignation, he pulled out sterile stitching material and placed a gentle hand on Cecil's shoulder.

"Cecil? I need to redo these stitches okay? I'm going to put something on it to numb the skin and dull the pain, but if I'm hurting you at all, just shake your hand or something okay?" Cecil stared into John's eyes for a long minute before he nodded acquiescence. John set to work numbing the area with a local anaesthetic and Sherlock joined his partner on the floor, kneeling at the edge of the tub.

Sherlock held Cecil's hand the whole way through the re-stitching of his wound. Cecil didn't make a single protestation. When it was done, they drained the tub and bundled Cecil into a fluffy towel. Sherlock and John left him alone so that he could change into a set of pyjamas that Anthea had dropped off while John had been stitching Cecil's back. (She'd also left several other bags of boy's clothing, but they'd go through that later.)

Sherlock and John came out of the kitchen—where they'd been quietly discussing Cecil's abuse—to find the aforementioned boy lying on his stomach on the couch, his mouth opened and a quiet snore issuing forth. The two men shared a small smile at the sight of the boy finally resting comfortably, clean and with a full belly and the cut on his back stitched properly.

"We have to find Cecil a proper family, Sherlock," John murmured.

"I know," Sherlock said, staring intently at the boy. "I know."

* * *

**So I'm going to send out an appeal to you. I have an idea about where I want this story to go (obviously) but if you have any suggestions or ideas about activities or interactions you'd like to see between Cecil and Sherlock, John, Mycroft, etc... let me know! At this point, I think a prompt or two might help keep me on track. :) Danke!**


	7. Saving and Caring

**From John's POV**

One of the hardest realities to face as a doctor is that you cannot possibly save everyone that comes under your scalpel or passes through your exam room with a terrible disease. It's not as if you don't know that before you become a doctor. As you grow up, you know that people die and you learn to accept it as just another part of being alive. The inevitably of death always serves as a reminder to live. And then when you decide to become a doctor, you have to hear a thousand lectures about death and having your patients die on you. The whole time you're listening to these lectures, you roll your eyes and stifle your groans because you're not an idiot; you KNOW people die and that patients die and sometimes there's nothing you can do to stop it. You KNOW it's going to be difficult when your patients die, but you're convinced of your own infallibility with your emotions. You convince yourself that when the day comes, you'll get through it because you're strong.

But eventually that day comes. You never know when it will happen, even though you are constantly aware that it will happen eventually. Everyone handles their first death differently, but almost universally there is a kind of mental and emotional numbness and the feeling of frustration and a little bit of guilt. You start wondering what you could have done differently or how you could have meted out just a little more time for them. And you suddenly realise that you were a fool to believe that you were going to be able to accept your first death.

When you're an army doctor… well, I'd almost venture to say that it's a little worse. When you're an army doctor, you spend your time patching up the most horrid wounds and treating diseases that you never find in modern hospitals. You see men and women of almost every age, but a startling majority of them are so much younger… just kids, really. They're kids that have no business being in a war zone getting blown to bits by bombs and bullets. And when they're lying on your table bleeding out of a million irreparable holes… it smacks you in the face that you are not going to be able to put that kid back together. They're never going to go back home. You are not going to save them.

I had a commanding officer that told me once that the first rule of war is that young men die. The second rule was that doctors can't change rule number one. As much as you don't want to believe it… you know it's true. You can't save everyone… and you're not going to.

When I found Sherlock sitting with Cecil in that slightly squalid flat, I could tell that something was happening. There was something different sitting in the depths of Sherlock's damnable aquamarine eyes…something I've never seen from him before. It was a look borne of utter determination and resolution to right some wrong that had been committed. I'd seen it in the eyes of so many doctors and interns and nurses and infantrymen. I knew I'd worn the same look on my own face more than enough times during my career as a doctor and a soldier. It was a look that said "I'm going to save somebody."

Now, of course Sherlock has saved many lives, including my own, during the course of his career as a consulting detective. I think that some people believe that his true goal isn't saving lives or serving justice, but rather just to get off on the feeling of solving the puzzle and giving chase to criminals. Although the latter is true—he does get off on the feeling of solving the puzzle—it is not his sole motivation. I have witnessed the man stepping off a building in order to save lives, which is not something you do if your motives are purely selfish. I think he does genuinely care about people…even the "boringly commonplace" people, as he puts it. He believes people to be—on the whole—dreadfully boring, messy, and simple creatures of habit and instinct. But even though he might hold some grudging contempt for their boring existences, I know he would not think twice about saving that existence from harm.

But when I saw him interacting with Cecil, I knew that his "I'm going to save somebody" look was different—baser, perhaps. I think it was almost as if Cecil had reached into the very depths of Sherlock's soul and saw him for who he really was. And Sherlock looked into Cecil and saw… something that prompted him to act the way he did. I'm not sure what it was, but if I had to guess, I would say that Sherlock sees himself as a child when he looks at Cecil. Not the abused foster-child with selective mutism, but the child who observes without speaking. The child who looks and thinks before he acts. The child who was always… just slightly different.

Currently, Cecil is fast asleep on the couch with his mouth hanging open and his chestnut curls tumbled in a mess over his head. He reminds me so much of a sleeping Sherlock that a pang of affection snags in my chest as I watch the boy sleep. The aforementioned Sherlock is sitting in his armchair with a cup of tea, watching the boy with a carefully measured look over the rising steam of the hot liquid in his mug. I can't read what Sherlock is thinking, which isn't unusual, but I know that the look is so much softer than the gaze he levels on those unsuspecting people that he's deducing. It's tender and gentle, which are adjectives he usually reserves for the like of me and Mrs Hudson, but it's measuring and calculating as well. I think it's exactly the look that Sherlock would wear as if he were looking at a child… specifically, _his_ child.

His baritone voice slides across my consciousness and interrupts my musings. "I am trying to refrain from thinking of him as _my_ child, John."

Surprise, surprise. "How did you know—'''

"You were being obvious. You have a very emotive face, John," he answers my unfinished question. He turns his head so that now he is studying me from his armchair. "The boy is not my child."

"Obviously," I reply. "I… wasn't thinking that. I was just thinking… the look on your face is what I would imagine you would look like if you were actually looking at your own child."

Something flashes in his eyes. "I've never wanted children, John."

"I figured that," I said. "I never pegged you as the 'family man' type."

He lowered his eyes and stared into his teacup and a silence stretched between us for some minutes before he said, "I'm entirely too selfish to be a proper father."

_What? _There were a dozen reasons I would have imagined Sherlock listing as his motivation to not have children, his career and his life choices being at the top of that list. Never would I have imagined him saying something like… this. I opened my mouth to speak, but he stalled me with a wave of his hand.

"I know what you're going to say, John, and I must beg you to not say it." He fixed his eyes on mine again and they were a steely grey in the dim light of our fire. He set his cup down and extended a large, graceful hand out towards me. I set my own cup of tea down on the table behind me and walked over to his chair, taking his hand when I got closer. He squeezed over to one side of his large chair and pulled me down to settle in the space beside him. Our limbs tangled into some kind of a cosy nest and when the dust settled, I was leaning back against the arm and Sherlock was nestled in my arms, his own long arms wrapped around my middle.

"Fatherhood was never anything that appealed to me, really," he said. I could feel the muscles of his jaw working against my chest as he spoke. "I mean, I suppose I have some sort of biological imperative inside my animal hindbrain to mate and produce offspring, but I have always been able to supress biology." He wrinkled his nose at the thought and I made it a point to stroke his back gently, silently arguing that he'd given up on repressing this particular biological instinct.

"The desire to be touched intimately is completely different than the desire to copulate, John," he muttered.

I chose to keep my mouth shut, merely chuckling at his very clinical description of cuddling (oh how he hated the affectionate words like that!). I kissed the top of his curly head and we fell into a contemplative silence. I chose to not ponder his previous statement, but instead turned my thoughts to the young boy sleeping on the couch. I still marvelled at how easily Cecil seemed to slip into our lives, especially Sherlock's. It was almost terrifying to realise just how easily we had come to care about him. The boy on the couch could easily have been our child, so natural it seemed to be. What were we going to do when he left us and went to live with his adopted family?

"All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is a disadvantage," Sherlock murmured.

I did not stop to think about how in the hell Sherlock managed to do that. All I could think about was that perhaps for once… he may be right.

* * *

**You all have the patience of saints. :) Thank you**


	8. Author's Note

**Hey everybody! **

**So I'm working on two stories for Sherlock at the moment; this story and Mind-Reader. I thought I could handle writing both stories at once, but… I can't. I've gotten myself entrenched in the gritty details of Mind-Reader and it's literally impossible for me to focus on the details that need to happen in this story. I really want to give this story the attention it needs, so I'm going to put it on a temporary hiatus until I finish Mind-Reader. **

**Rest assured that I will get back to it. I don't know when, but I'm not going to abandon this plot. In the meantime, go check out Mind-Reader (wink wink). **

**Also… I was serious when I said that if you have ideas about what shenanigans John, Sherlock, and Cecil could be up to, let me know. When I do get back to this story, prompts will probably help reheat the crucible. **

**Thank you for your patience and your kindness. It's always appreciated. :-) **

**PS: Is anyone else completely and utterly terrified about series three? **


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